Striker's pain a mystery

BRISBANE'S Besart Berisha will see a specialist to diagnose the mysterious abdominal injury which forced his late withdrawal from Friday night's A-League clash with Melbourne Heart and is set to sideline the star striker indefinitely.

Mystified Roar coach Rado Vidosic revealed the extent of his Albanian international's injury on Thursday morning, explaining that the usually bouncy Berisha was ''down in the dumps''.

''He's no good. He's still having pain in his abdomen,'' Vidosic said after Berisha struggled through training before the Roar left for Melbourne.

''Once we know more after this injection … if we need to send him to a surgeon,'' said Vidosic. ''Nothing came up on any ultrasounds or MRIs or anything - it was all negative. It's having an effect on his training. You can see he is really down because he feels like he's letting the team down.

'' We can play without him - we can survive without him until we know what his problem is.''

Meanwhile Heart boss John Aloisi said that his players were not under significant pressure despite a form slump which has seen them lose their last three games and slide to the bottom of the table. ''If we lose, it's not great for us,'' Aloisi said. ''But there's a long way to go and we know that we're going to get a lot stronger.

''Not only the likes of Vinnie [Grella] coming back in, Fred will, there's a lot of other players that we're missing at the moment.''